Finally, the longtime leader of the resistance stood. “I will tell the others.”
CHAPTER41
AMARANDEwas stripped of her clothes and scrubbed painfully clean. Her wounds were slathered in clove oil and sealed with honey before being wrapped in linen where appropriate. It was quite clear the Warlord had no intention of allowing any infection to linger before they arrived in Ardenia.
The Warlord did not want Amarande to suffer from dehydration or starvation either. Once the princess was deposited in a specially fortified traveling cart, she was given cool water, muddled cherries, sheepherder’s bread, cheese, and spiced dried meat.
It was the best she’d eaten since that last night on theGatzal,when she and Luca, Ula, Urtzi, and Osana had sat cross-legged under the stars and enjoyed roasted fish they’d caught themselves. Sprayed in lemon juice and wrapped in seaweed, it had been delicious.
So much had changed since then and her stomach ached, having difficulty digesting both this amount of food and the possibilities of what might come. She wished she knew what to do. Her father and his tenets were silent in her mind.
By midmorning the chaos that was the camp packing up ended, and the mood shifted—they would be on the road, and soon. Men and women bustled around her cart, readying, moving, doing. Amarande stood and watched from the open bars that lined the long sides of the cell. This particular cart had two sides, divided by a solid wooden wall, the same as the roof—Amarande was sure they’d gotten the wood and wagon wheels from the frequent raids conducted on neighboring kingdoms. For at least an hour the other side of the cart was empty, but then came a thud, footsteps, and the clang of the locking mechanism.
A moment later came Taillefer’s voice. Nearly cheerful, though worn with exhaustion. “When were you planning to tell me your mother was the Warlord? That seems like information that would’ve been nice to have, oh say, when we witnessed dead bodies floating atthe watering hole. Or when we stepped up onto the portico at the Warlord’s Inn, or, possibly when we snuck into the Warlord’s camp for supplies.”
Frustration tugged at Amarande. With him. With herself. She blew out an impatient breath. “I did not know she was thecurrentWarlord. And I only knew about her previous occupation because Ferdinand confirmed it for me when I guessed. He also does not prefer to lie.”
Taillefer’s tone was snakebitten. “What else don’t I know? You have been holding back more than simply that truth. And though it is not an outright deception, a lie by omission is still a lie.”
“Even the best of us are willing to lie for those we love.”
As soon as it was out, she realized she’d built upon an answer the Warlord had given. Taillefer did not call her on it. Instead, he added, “The worst of us, too.”
She nearly asked him who he loved enough to lie for because the prospects were slim.
His mother wanted his head on a pike.
His brother was murdered by Amarande’s own hand from a series of events he orchestrated.
And sickness took his father so long ago that it seemed an impossibility that he would benefit from a lie told today.
The truth Amarande should have shouted from the mountaintops slid quietly to the tip of her tongue. All things considered, now might be the only remaining chance she’d get to speak it outside the thick walls of the Itspi.
“Ferdinand is a bastard.”
The prince barked out a laugh. “You’re telling me your mother had a son by another man who happened to look just like King Sendoa?”
Amarande managed a thin breath through her nose, her whole body suddenly seeming as tight as a bowstring. “He’s General Koldo’s child with my father. Yet my mother raised him as her own.”
“Nowthatis a scandal,” Taillefer crowed, breathlessly. “Why on earth didn’t you escape and then drag me to the nearest market to scream at the masses? That is storm-the-castle-with-pitchforks material. Especially if you could prove your mother was the Warlord. Does she have a tattoo?”
“Yes.”
“Princess, love has blinded you to this opportunity.”
Amarande drew her knees tightly to her chest, balling all her tension over her tender heart. She imagined Taillefer on the other side of the wall, her diametric opposite—lying loose and unbound, no tension in his body at all. “No, I had to get to Luca first. Mother knew of him, and of the resistance’s plan to attack the Warlord.”
“My injuries confirm that she isn’t the only one with such knowledge.”
Which meant that if Luca came for Amarande before her transfer to the Itspi he was walking into a trap in more ways than one. Bile clawed at her throat, her recent meal threatening a reappearance.
Taillefer shifted, and there was a slight thud on the divider—his spine settling against the wood, all his weight in it. She pictured him, temple pressed against the partition as his head tipped to the side in that mocking way he had. “Your friend,Little Queen,she treated my injuries.”
“No punishment?” Amarande’s voice was low; she wished to cause the woman who saved Luca’s life no more trouble.
“She did her work in chains at knifepoint.” After a long pause, Taillefer’s voice came again. “Not that you asked, but it seems I have shattered a rib—not something anything but time can repair, I’m told, but she did her best to make me as comfortable as one can be with a bone shard mosaic embedded in at least one lung.”
“I am surprised you let her heal you.”
